Train Table / Coffee Table / Chest

This Train Table / Coffee Table / Chest was made for my son. He needed a train table with a ledge so his train set didn’t keep getting pushed off the table as he played with it. Since this was going in our living-room, I also wanted it to serve as a coffee table and a storage chest.

The problem with it being a chest and a train table I solved by making the top lift off rather than be hinged. We can lift it off, put stuff away, then set it back down without disturbing the train or anything else that is on it.

The entire piece is made of pine. Due to the limitations of time (yes I was building this days before his birthday) I had to go with Lowes pine. Yes it was too expensive and took a lot of sorting at the store, but this is the corner I backed myself into by doing this project last-minute.

The panels are tongue-and-grooved with match planes they are joined at the corners by through dovetails.

The edge banding is free floating except glued on one long side to allow for wood movement. The corners of the edges are joined with halfblind dovetails as I thought they would wear a little better being that the corner is likely to get more wear and tear.

Finish is amber shellac with just a little BLO mixed in. It really needed 3 more coats, but time ran out. It is still on my “finish this up later list.”

The entire train table chest build spans several blog posts so I’ve just put the link to just the starting page. Sketch-up plans are available there as well.

Mostly this was done with donut powered tools, but I did use my bandsaw to rough out the arches for the legs, and my router to cut the pattern, round over all the edges and cut the dadoes.

@Kate, match planes are so much fun and so easy to use, I think I subconsciously come up with projects to use them on.

@Ianwater, not sure if you use the trick of putting earthquake putty / sticky-tak under the track to keep it in place, but that works well. Unfortunately, I discovered, sticky-tak does not stick to a shellac finish. I had to put a piece of 1/4” mdf down on top of the table to get the stuff to hold the track in place. My son is not quite to the age where he can build his own track creations yet, so the sticky stuff helps hold it in place as he plays.

Great looking table, interesting design, very functional and attractive, love your work on the joinery, and overall look is wonderful. Your pics are great, with the added labels and identifications, looks very professional. Good job

Thanks Barbs, The table is now a year and a half older. Has a few dings and teeth marks on it, but my son uses it daily and hopefully will for several more years. Then it can go back to just being my coffee table ;)